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Film Chief at Disney Steps Down

LOS ANGELES — The chairman of Walt Disney Studios, Dick Cook, resigned late Friday following struggles with profitability, creative focus and a shifting relationship with other Disney units.

Mr. Cook, who started at the Walt Disney Company 38 years ago as a theme park monorail driver, said in a statement that he had been contemplating a move for some time. Robert A. Iger, Disney’s chief executive, praised his leadership, saying in a statement that his “incomparable showmanship” had “truly enriched this company.”

But pressure had been mounting on Mr. Iger to make a change at the studio. A profitable period — led by the “Pirates of the Caribbean” and “National Treasure” franchises — has been followed by a fallow one. Movies like “Confessions of a Shopaholic,” “Bedtime Stories” and “G-Force” have all disappointed at the box office or suffered from bloated budgets.

In the most recent quarter, the studio lost $12 million — despite the success of “Up” from Pixar, and the hit comedy “The Proposal” — in contrast to a profit of $97 million in the same period a year earlier. The loss was attributed to tumbling DVD sales tied to the underperforming pictures.

Under Mr. Cook, the studio also showed a reluctance to adopt a new focus on companywide franchises. Hit Disney Channel properties and stars, for instance, were not immediately embraced for their feature potential. Mr. Iger, having buttressed the movie division with the $7.4 billion purchase of Pixar in 2006 and the recent $4 billion acquisition of Marvel Entertainment, has repeatedly expressed displeasure with the studio’s lack of communication with other business units.

No successor was named. Mr. Iger, who was meeting with Wal-Mart executives in Arkansas on Friday, is expected to name one shortly, possibly from the company’s ranks, although not necessarily from within the film studio, according to people with knowledge of his thinking.

Mr. Cook’s departure left some megawatt producers with a sudden void. “I’m completely shocked — as is literally everybody I’ve spoken to,” said Scott Rudin, whose production company has a first-look deal with Disney. “I’ve collaborated with him on so many movies — since “Sister Act” — and have only ever adored him as a friend and as a boss. Dick has single-handedly made possible some of the very best things that have happened to me in my career.”

After stumbling through a period of soft performance and a reduced release schedule, Disney’s film operation has suddenly faced a new challenge: digesting an expected wave of new offerings from Marvel Entertainment, which Disney bought in a surprise deal only three weeks ago, and from the independent company DreamWorks, which shortly before that received financing for films that Disney would distribute.

Those deals, combined with the strength of Pixar and its chief creative officer, John Lasseter, has clearly squeezed Disney’s own moviemaking team, which has to manage a newly crowded release schedule while finding room for its own films.

Mr. Cook and his chief production lieutenant, Oren Aviv, had a surprise hit this summer in “The Proposal,” a romance that defied industry logic by taking in more than $161 million at the domestic box office in a season that has generally been friendlier to high-priced fantasy and animation.

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Through the rest of the year, the company is banking heavily on “A Christmas Carol,” a hugely expensive, computer-enhanced retelling of the classic Dickens story with Jim Carrey in the lead, directed by Robert Zemeckis, and has been hoping for another possible surprise hit with “Old Dogs,” a comedy that stars John Travolta and Robin Williams.

A jovial conversationalist, Mr. Cook has been widely liked, and regarded as far from a typical film executive. He was a crucial player when it came to persuading Steven P. Jobs and others to bring Pixar into the Disney fold.

While Joe Roth, who ran Disney’s film operation until 2001, was a consummate Hollywood insider, proud of his connections to stars like Julia Roberts, Mr. Cook always looked more to Disney’s traditions. He often pointed to what he described as the Disney premium: The tendency of any family film to create 25 percent more revenue when run through Disney’s promotional system, cable properties, and parks, than the same movie would make with a competitor.

“To wrap up my Disney experience in a neatly bundled statement is close to impossible,” Mr. Cook said. “In the words of one of my baseball heroes, Yogi Berra, ‘If you come to a fork in the road, take it.’ ”

Mr. Cook’s legacy included solid relationships with the producer Jerry Bruckheimer and the filmmaker Tim Burton, both of whom have become mainstays of the studio.

But his resignation comes as Hollywood executives, after a period of relative stability, have been looking over their shoulders, as growing financial pressure and nervous corporate managers are starting shake-ups — most recently at Paramount, where two top executives were ousted in recent weeks — and making even longtime power players less secure.